As you may notice, the following recruits suck. This is because I recruited these low-rated, high-potential players so that I could spend money on my main target, #2 PG James Potter (from MD). After a back-and forth battle with Villanova, we had finally taken the lead. For a cycle, I thought Potter was headed to NC State. Then, UVA swooped in with all their post-signings cash and blew me out of the water (which was no small deed, as I had dropped 75k on Potter). So, here are my mediocre recruits:

Very late edit: I finally decided to post some of these recruits. I signed 4 guys, two of which were JUCO guards that came off the bench for both years. Neither are of any significant impact. The two 4 year players are more interesting. The first is Charles Burton. After 3 years of coming off the bench (two of them he was backing up David Dixon, who you will see further down). In his senior year, I have decided that he should be starting, given his all-around game has really come together. He's an outstanding defender and athlete, is scoring the ball very nicely, and he's grabbing a lot of rebounds. He's turned out extremely well. The other is Steven Covell. He RS'd his first year and then didn't really contribute for two years (as he was underdeveloped and not good enough to play). Now that he has relatively maxed out, he is a valuable role player, coming in off the bench as our 4th big man. He's scoring 5 points and grabbing 4 rebounds per game in only 13 minutes. Despite playing so little, Covell is definitely talented. We just so happen to have one of the most talented front-courts in the country. To have a guy like Covell as our 4th big really speaks very well of this current team.

Well, I decided not to post the recruits I guess, they were terrible anyway. We were the last team out of the NT, a tough pill to swallow. We took out our anger on the PI and ended up winning it. Unfortunately, both Curnutt and Hamilton decided to enter the draft early. So, there goes any hope of doing well next year. We did maintain our A- prestige with the PI win, and with Hamilton and Curnutt both getting drafted, it's possible that their draft status could bump us up to an A prestige. An A prestige and 5 openings might be able to make me feel better about those two leaving. I have a feeling we may be starting 3 freshmen next year.

This recruiting session went much better than expected with so many openings in the region. I know it doesn't really mean much, but this recruiting class has 15 "stars", which is the highest I've ever gotten. I do have two problems with this class: 1) I didn't bring in any ACC POY level players, just "good" players. 2) In a class of 5, I didn't bring in a SG. With 4 (possibly 5 if my ineligible doesn't show) openings, a SG will definitely be my first priority next year.

Howard is going to be an athletic, fast, good defender, good rebounder, good post-up player, and a good shooter. He won't be extremely great at anything, just very good at a lot of things. In a way, he embodies this class.

My only non-4-star recruit from the United States, I am really hoping this ineligible shows up. Smith may not end up being a great rebounder, but he'll be a pretty great defender and scorer as a center. I think I got a very good value recruit here.

EDIT: After sitting out his inel year, he barely played (3 gp, 3 min total) his sophomore year because of the very talented bigs ahead of him. His 33 WE dropped to 29 and he complained about PT. With all the bigs returning, he was not talented enough to play this year. If he was going to get no PT, his WE would continue to fall and he would never reach his very good potential. So, I decided to cut him. He was never going to be any good for us anyway and there was value in the recruiting pool. Whichever team picks him up (probably a C range mid-major) is going to be able to start him, get his WE up, and have a very solid big man for the next 3 years. It just wasn't a good fit with the personel ahead of him, but I will definitely watch his progress at whichever school he goes to, I would even like to see him win some awards (that would show I kinda knew what I was doing when I recruited him!).

In what seems to be a trend for us, we once again got an 8 seed, won in the first round, and then got crushed by the one seed. This year, that 9 seed was Marquette and the 1 seed was LSU. While this trend is somewhat frustrating, this year was definitely not frustrating. We started 3 freshmen, Zmich at PG, Dixon at SF, and Sims at PF. All performed at an expected level, Zmich slightly above expected with an impressive 5 assist 1.5 TO year. At the other two spots we started seniors who both performed extremely well. At SG we started Jeffrey Linquist, a bench player for the previous 3 years. I wasn't all that excited about starting him. Turns out I was very wrong. As the 2nd scoring option, he scored 15.5 ppg and shot 42% from 3. Since he had actually shot only 1 shot from beyond the arc previously in his career (my bad coaching move), his career % was 42%, good for the best all-time 3pt% at NC State. He was honorable mention all-conference. Our unbelievably great play came from Center Brent Everett. Coming out of high school as an unranked center, not a typical player for a team like NC State, he RS'd his first year. He made great improvement every year and it all culminated in an amazing season. He scored 25.2 ppg and grabbed 7.3 rpg (24.4 and 6.7 in conf play). His scoring led not only the ACC, but also the country. He was named 1st-team All-ACC and 1st-team All-American. From completely unranked recruit to 1st-team All-American (and very worthy of it ratings-wise) is quite the achievement.

For the actual results of the team, I was very surprised by how well we did. I know we had a dominant (and hopefully high NBA prospect) Center, but with 3 freshmen starting I was not optimistic. I was proved wrong as we went 9-1 OOC (easy schedule, only 1 top 100 win) and then went 12-4 in the ACC, winning our division. Our season finished with a 23-7 record and a 2nd round finish (as stated above). I was really pleased with the performance as well as with the development of the young players (especially Derrick Howard, who RS'd. He'll come in next year and probably start, I'd like to keep Hollifield coming off the bench).

Our outlook for next year is definitely not good, as we'll only have 2 upperclassmen, both of whom will probably be coming off the bench.

Okay, I did not post my recruits before because I was extremely busy and forgot about it, but I do have them, so here they are (on the eve of the CT):

Our first recruit was Roy Potter:

Potter is going to be our only guard coming in unfortunately. I was hoping he could be a 3 man down the line, but that won't be happening. Our top guard target, Walton Ayon (#3SG) from SC, was taken on the last cycle by UNC. I was expecting the attack, just didn't have the cash to fight him off. Oh well, it was definitely worth a shot to get a guy that good. So, this year, we will only have two guards, Potter and Zmich.

A JUCO Center too good to pass up for cheap, I snagged Scalzo to really sure up our front court. If we can pull in a decent guard or two next year, we will be very solid with our very good front court, where Scalzo will be a backup.

In a remarkable turn of events, we somehow made the tournament this year. After being pretty far down on the Projection Report, we started to inch our way up. Being in the high 60s with four games left, we went on a four game run, upsetting ranked UVA and WF. While that run to the tourney was amazing, I am still shocked we even made the postseason considering the players on the team. We started three sophomores and two freshmen. We had two guards on the entire roster (Dixon is listed as an SG, but obviously he's a SF). Somehow, this young group of guys, were able to squeak out enough wins to be one of the last 4 teams into the tournament. With only one senior graduating (and only two juniors on the roster), the future of this team is very bright. I am especially excited about Zmich and Derrick Howard. Zmich is going to be at 100 speed next season. With 90s in ath-spd-def-bh-p, he's a pretty complete pure PG. With his high potential in LP, he could turn into a legitmate scoring threat if it can get to 70+ by his senior year. Also, Zmich is at 303 career assists through his first two years, which is good enough for 10th on the all-time assist list at NC State. If he only averages what he did these first two years (which were played at slowdown), he will be 6th on the all-time D1 list. With his teammates getting better and the team playing at a faster pace, I think Zmich will end up breaking into that top 5 all-time and perhaps becoming the all-time assist leader in D1 (he's going to shatter the NC State record, he might even break it by the end of next year). Howard is also going to be extremely, extremely good. He should top out at 99 athleticism with tons of LP, but it is the Per that has me so excited. Still high, in will most definitely reach 70, hopefully more. Also, Howard is only a freshman because of the RS. He could definitely end up being a POY candidate next year in the ACC. I am very excited.

PS- Potter, Dixon, and Sims are all going to be very good next year, too. With Burton and and Scalzo coming off the bench next year, I think we are going to be very very good. If we can get a good guard to come off the bench and then maybe a 4th guy who would only play in extreme situations, I think NC State could make some noise in the tourney next year.